A year into his first term, President Trump is on his second White House chief of staff, second national security adviser, third deputy national security adviser, second press secretary, fifth communications director, and second HHS secretary, and that doesn't count all the vacancies. The White House budget director, Mick Mulvaney, is also in charge of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and John DeStefano oversees three White House offices: personnel, public liaison, and political affairs. This isn't normal, says Peter Baker at The New York Times.
"We have vacancies on top of vacancies," Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, who has studied White House turnover at the Brookings Institution, tells the Times. In fact, more than a third of Trump's hires have left, and "some administration officials privately spend much of their time trying to figure out how to leave without looking disloyal or provoking an easily angered president," the Times reports:
According to a report by Ms. Tenpas, Mr. Trump's 34 percent turnover rate in his first year is more than three times as high as President Barack Obama's in the same period and twice as high as President Ronald Reagan's, which until now was the modern record-holder. Of 12 positions deemed most central to the president, only five are still filled by the same person as when Mr. Trump took office. [The New York Times]
The fear of losing yet another senior aide is one of the reasons the White House was reluctant to push out staff secretary Rob Porter, despite being informed he would not be granted security clearance due to domestic violence accusations, Baker reports. White House jobs are usually highly sought-after, he adds, but "Republican operatives said they worry not only about the pressure-cooker, soap-opera atmosphere and the danger of being drawn into the special counsel investigation of Russia's election interference but also about hurting their careers after the White House." You can read more at The New York Times. Peter Weber
Facebook has just disclosed yet another leak, this time affecting millions of users' private photos.
The social media platform said Friday that it discovered a bug that may have given up to 1,500 third-party apps improper access to photos from up to 6.8 million users. Normally, the apps would only be permitted to access photos that a user has actually posted on their Facebook timeline, but because of this bug, the apps could access pictures that weren't publicly posted. This would include pictures shared on Facebook's Marketplace or on Facebook Stories, as well as pictures that a user uploaded but didn't end up posting.
The apps had access to these photos for 12 days in September 2018, Facebook says. This issue would have only affected users who authorized the app to access photos. "We're sorry this happened," Facebook said. You can find out whether any of your pictures were affected by the bug here.
This is just the latest security scandal for Facebook, which is still reeling from revelations earlier this year that a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, was able to gain access to Facebook users' private information. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress the scandal was "my mistake, and I'm sorry." Brendan Morrow
Among allies of President Trump, "he did not break the law" has quickly evolved into "even if he did, who cares?"
Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, told The Daily Beast in a story published Friday that the ongoing controversy over possible campaign finance violations isn't a big deal because "Nobody got killed, nobody got robbed," adding, "this was not a big crime." He went on to compare paying hush money to two alleged mistresses shortly before a presidential election to not paying parking tickets.
Trump's lawyer had previously argued that the payments were not related to the campaign and were "personal," and therefore were not in violation of campaign finance law, per The Washington Post. But this argument has become increasingly dubious in recent days considering American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, said this week that it paid Karen McDougal $150,000 to keep her silent about her alleged affair with Trump for the sole purpose of ensuring she did not affect the election. Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has also said the payments had everything to do with the election.
Giuliani separately told The Wall Street Journal on Friday that even if Trump did violate campaign finance law, it's not big deal. "It's campaign finance, my God," he said. "Everybody pays a fine to the FEC that is in politics. You can’t follow all the rules.” Brendan Morrow
MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski apologized on Morning Joe Friday morning for having called Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a "wannabe dictator's butt boy."
Brzezinski at the top of the show referenced her "terrible choice of words" two days prior. "The term is crass and offensive and I apologize to everyone, especially the LGBTQ community and to my colleagues for using it," she said, per Mediaite. This was a "mistake," Brzezinski added, saying she will "work hard to be better."
The Morning Joe host had apologized for the remark on Twitter Wednesday morning, saying that it was a "
President Trump weighed in on the controversy, tweeting that if a conservative made a similar mistake, they would "be banned permanently from television" but that Brzezinski, who he referred to as "crazed," will "probably be given a pass, despite their terrible ratings." Megyn Kelly, a conservative whose NBC show was canceled after she made comments defending wearing blackface on Halloween, said Thursday that Brzezinski should not be fired for her statement, per The Daily Mail. "I hope she's forgiven," Kelly said. Brendan Morrow
